SLAGLE:  Hey everybody, thanks for joining us here on the "Superstar" Billy Graham website at superstarbillygraham.com!  I'm Steve Slagle, and I want to thank everyone for joining us today.  Our guest this week is probably one of the most controversial announcers that I can think of, and also probably one of the most popular, especially on the internet.  He's the voice of ECW Hardcore TV and also ECW on TNN, and it's my pleasure to introduce Joey Styles.  Joey, how are you doing?

STYLES:  Good, but I can't believe that you consider me controversial.  I always thought that I was a pretty tame character -- both on TV and in real life.

SLAGLE: Well, I mean, some of your catchphrases...and I guess not really so much nowadays, but at one point, you were pretty controversial.

STYLES:  Well, the 'Oh my God' thing was never meant as disrespectful, and I'm sure as we talk in this interview, we'll talk about my faith, and how that's the reason Superstar reached out to me.  But, it was never meant to, uh, what's the word I'm looking for...

SLAGLE:  Offend people, or...

STYLES:  It was never meant to offend anybody.  It was never meant to be blasphemous, that's what I'm trying to say.

SLAGLE:  Well, I don't think it came off that way, either.  It was more kind of like just an expression of the action that's going on...

STYLES:  Well, I was in the studio, we were in suburban Philadelphia, and I believe it was the time that Mike Awesome dove over the top rope and crushed J.T. Smith against the steel guardrail.  It bent J.T. backwards...we called it The Gumby Bump, because J.T. looked like Gumby.  So, my natural reaction was 'Oh my God!'  I thought he had killed J.T., because I hadn't seen it, I wasn't there live.  And then I said, "No, I can't say that on television," and Paul was like, "No!  It's great, it's a great natural reaction!  Go ahead and use that!"  So, you know, if I was as bright as people give me credit for, I would've thought up a new and original catchphrase that I could actually trademark!

SLAGLE:  Right...

STYLES: Like, with Pat Riley and "Three-peat."  People don't realize he owned that, and when the Bulls won their third consecutive championship, Pat Riley is the one that cashed in.

SLAGLE:   Oh yeah, I live in Chicago, so I remember that...

STYLES:  So, maybe if we go on to a bigger and better network, now that we can leave the, uh, the Chew & Spit Channel, the Dueling Banjo Station, I can come up with a new trademark phrase that I can make some money off of.

SLAGLE:  Well, we can only hope so.  Actually, that kind of leads us into something, obviously, that I want to talk about.  As we speak today, yesterday the ruling came in for the WWF in their court case against their longtime programmer, for about twenty years...

STYLES: At least fifteen, yeah...

SLAGLE:  Yeah.  Which means that the WWF will likely be freed up to go to...

STYLES:  It's already done...

SLAGLE:  Oh, it is?  It's all done now?  .

STYLES:  Yeah, I believe that the Raw/Warzone program, Superstars, and Livewire will go to TNN, which will most likely be renamed The National Network, and will still be called TNN.  Sunday Night Heat will move to MTV, and Smackdown! will stay on UPN, which is obviously owned by Viacom.  So, yeah, that's pretty much done.  The question then is...go ahead.

SLAGLE:  Yeah, exactly, the question is...

STYLES:  I'm just tryin' to help you out...

SLAGLE:  Yeah, and I appreciate that!  So, the question then is, what does that hold for ECW?

STYLES:Basically, it gets us off a network that we don't have a good relationship with.  You know, a lot of it is a very entertaining storyline on tv.  But, the fact of the matter is that we're on TNN, probably the lowest-rated basic cable network in America, and we're doing the highest ratings on the network, if not tied for the highest ratings on the network, and we've done it with no support from them whatsoever.  And maybe it's true that by putting the WWF on there, and getting Viacom behind them, they can re-launch TNN as the National Network, and make it a powerhouse network on the same level as TNT, TBS, and USA.  But, the fact of the matter is that ECW didn't have the muscle to do that for TNN, and TNN wasn't willing to help us out at all.

I mean, we got a 0.8 rating, average, I think, for the quarter we averaged a 0.9, on our own.  The rest of their programs, the rest of the network averages like a 0.3.  I think that they resent that.  And then, now, apparently they want us as a lead-in for their programs, but if you look at last week, we did a 0.8, and the rest of the programs on the network on Friday night did a 0.5, 0.3, 0.2.  So, it's obvious that fans who never heard of TNN, nor should they, it's got a very regional skew to it, but they're just tuning in for ECW, and then they're leaving.  So, it leaves us open, I believe, I hope, to go on a bigger and better network.  One that will get behind us, maybe give us some money, or take an equity stake in the company, and give us the lights and the pyro and the eight-figure production budgets.

Because, we've got a booker in Paul Heyman (pictured) that can compete with any other booker, or booking team in the business -- when he has nothing else to do but book, that's very important.  We have a locker room that, yeah, maybe we don't stack up size-wise against the other companies, or in terms of roster depth, but they're as loyal, and as willing to work hard as any other locker room in the business.  And I think that if we go to a -- and I'm just going to throw out names here, because they've appeared on the internet -- USA Network, or Fox Sports, or FX, I think that we can become a major player.  You know, not on the same level as the WWF, because they are now jumping from being a wrestling company to being an entertainment company, and now, being in bed with Viacom, which took a three percent equity interest in WWFE for $30 million, I think you'll see the WWF getting in to television series', movies, specials and other things, they're going to now transcend wrestling.

SLAGLE:  Right...

STYLES: But, I do think it could put us on the same level as WCW, and maybe put us in a position to leapfrog WCW.  Vince McMahon and the WWF have already conquered the professional wrestling industry.  He pretty much invented it, as we know it, perfected it, now he wants to transcend it.  ECW would be very happy being a powerhouse, profitable wrestling company.  I think for the immediate future, we don't have any designs on having our own series, or movies or restaurants, you know, I think for now we want to be a profitable, powerhouse wrestling company -- which, we could be, in a little under a year now, if we wind up with the right network partnering with us.

SLAGLE:  That kind of leads me another question I had.  At one point, I thought that ECW was kind of tailor-made for a Showtime sort of network, you know, where you guys could really do what you wanted to do, be as risqué as you wanted to be, and a lot of people would still see it.  But then again, it's still a pay network, so maybe not everyone would be able to see it.  What are your thoughts on a HBO or a Showtime kind of deal for ECW?

STYLES: The only thing we can do there that we can't do on basic cable is profanity, and right now we're doing it anyway, quite frankly.  Basically, you're talking about the f-word and the s-word, and we bleep them.  So, I mean, we're not toning down the violence at all to be on TNN.  You're seeing blood.  And that because, while TNN originally had handcuffs on us, our argument was, "Look at what the WWF is doing!"  The WWF is every bit as violent as we are, or at least they orchestrate stunts with enough safety measures in place that they look as dangerous as us, but in most cases, no matter what they tell you, they're being as dangerous as us.  The profanity is the only difference, and I don't really think the profanity adds anything.  I don't think it's cool, I don't think it's hip, and I don't like it.  I know that Paul, Paul Heyman, the owner and executive producer of ECW is a big fan of it, and uses it in his everyday lingo, but, uh, I don't like it.  So, you know, being on Showtime, you're talking about you know, maybe twenty or thirty million homes?  As opposed to the seventy-five million cable households that exist.  So, business wise, I don't think that would help us all that much.

SLAGLE:  Actually, I was at the ECW Chicago TV taping, I guess it was, last Saturday night...

STYLES:  Oh, well, why didn't you seek me out?  I was there.

SLAGLE:  Well, you know...

STYLES:  We could've done this in person, had a cup of coffee, and, y'know...  .

SLAGLE:  Actually, I would've enjoyed that.

0STYLES:  Well, the next time, grab a security guard and tell them who you're with and that I was expecting to do this interview, and they'll bring you right backstage with the rest of the press.  Hell, if WOW Magazine can get in, you can get in!.

SLAGLE:  I guess you guys don't have, like, a cranky Doug Dillenger back there just waiting to, y'know, throw everyone out...

STYLES:  Actually, our security is much tougher than WCW's.

SLAGLE:  I'm sure...

STYLES:  You know that big Jim Dodson guy that you see with the WWF?

SLAGLE:  Sure, sure.

STYLES:  We have thirty guys that look like that at our shows, they're called Atlas Security, and they're all dressed in black.  Black jackets, black pants and black shirts.  You see them all over the building.  They are as bad as any security force I have ever seen...they scare me more than the locker room does!  So, if you tell them who you are, I would've said, "Sure, bring him back."  Next time you know.  Next time we're in the midwest, we're coming there for the November to Remember pay-per-view, it's gonna be in Chicago...

SLAGLE:  Really...

STYLES:  Yep, so we'll talk more then.

SLAGLE:  Absolutely!  Now, one thing I noticed at ECW -- I've been following your guys' product, I guess since about like `93 or `94...

STYLES:  That's about when it all started...

SLAGLE:  Yeah.  I mean, living in Chicago, I didn't get to see it on TV, but I did see tapes, and you know, I was a pretty adamant ECW fan at the time, and still continue to be.  So, I was well aware of everything that was going on.

But, my first time actually at a live ECW show was last weekend.  And...it kind of reminded me a lot of like when I was a kid and would go to the AWA shows, or Central States Wrestling or something wherein you have a relatively small building, it's not like a twenty-thousand seat arena, but still a decent sized place, you know?  And, it's packed, absolutely packed full of people, rowdy people, who want to be there, and are, like, having the time of their lives.  It just kind of reminded me of like an old-school kind of feel, but at the same time, there's nothing "old-school" about ECW, if you look at it in a certain way.  I mean, they're totally hip, totally modern, Paul writes his own rules...and it was just a cool contrast.  I really enjoyed myself, and it really struck me that you guys have the best of both worlds, where you're new and current, but you still have an old-school flavor, too.

STYLES:  I think it's that we've gotten big enough that we are national, and that we are at the forefront of a lot of the trends you see in other wrestling companies.  At the same time, back during the territorial times, and I'll admit that this was before I was in the wrestling business, but I'm a student of the wrestling business, so I read about it and I've been told about it, by the greats like "Superstar" Billy Graham, that with the territories, you saw the same fans in the same building all of the time, and they felt like they were a part of the company.  I think our fans are so rabid and so loyal and so devoted to helping build ECW because, even though we're national, the fans in each city, each of our 'territories' still feel that way.  They feel like the fans in Philadelphia who've been there since Day One, and I think that's one of the reasons why performing in ECW is a lot of fun.  Because you meet a lot of fans who say, "Joey, I've been watching you, man, even when I didn't get it in my area, I was trading tapes."  That just, that's amazing to me that someone would go through all the trouble of trading tapes, just to see ECW.  Quite frankly, I find it very flattering.

SLAGLE:  Yeah, well, I was one of those people, actually...

STYLES:  Well, thank you very much.  It's because of people like you that there's still an ECW.

SLAGLE:  No problem, no problem at all.